>>41482851>Wouldn't they still detonateNope. The explosive triggers that cause nuclear fission have to be detonated very precisely. The kinetic energy imparted by a missile interceptor will not detonate the explosives in the proper manner.

>>41482981>explosions won't trigger this processThat's literally how they trigger the process. It just requires the explosives to be detonated simultaneously across the surface of the sphere of plutonium, applying an equal force in all directions.

>>41483086That's what I was saying in the 2nd post you referenced. You're not going to properly detonate explosive lenses down to the microsecond with an impact. I'm not even certain the explosive compounds used would detonate to begin with.

Guys I think he's referencing more along the lines of a dirty bomb, which absolutely could happen. The odds of triggering a nuclear detonation with a kinetic impact are zero but you absolutely will scatter the nuclear fuel and potentially at a high altitude. It's still infinitely better than an actual nuclear detonation though.

shooting down an ICBM is hard. they fly very high and very fast. when they come down, they're moving at over 24 times the speed of sound. many of them also deploy decoys and countermeasures to hide exactly where they are.

no anti-ballistic missile system has ever been demonstrated that has the ability to intercept something like that.

>>41483397U-235 and Pu-239 are not anywhere near radioactive enough to be particularly dangerous when scattered by an impact. It's the fission products that tend to cause the health issues associated with nuclear fallout and reactor meltdowns.

>>41483707bombs intentionally made so that they still achieve nuclear fission, but do not detonate "cleanly" and make use of a very small percent of fissile material in the bomb to create energy. Essentially it's just half-detonating a nuke so the fission products irradiate the area. You still need fission to make fission products.

28% is more than enough to do some serious damage. If, for example, the enemy shoots 1,000 missiles at you, and you intercept 720 of them, that leaves 280 missiles. If those missiles have MIRV's, that could be almost 3,000 remaining warheads. I feel like I could obliterate any country on Earth with 3,000 warheads...even 300 warheads is more than enough. Also, you don't "win" a nuclear war, you can only lose less.

Regarding height, if a nuke detonates at ground level, there's a lot more material to be irradiated and scattered. The higher up a missile is destroyed (or detonates) the less problematic ground level radiation is. With a dirty bomb, it would be detonated *at* ground level.

More important is the purpose. The entire point of a dirty bomb is to create terror by irradiating an area, not actually destroying anything like a nuke. The actual radioactive material used can vary but doesn't actually matter. Any press statement, news headline, or any other acknowledgment of terrorists detonating a dirty bomb would be devastating. Even if no one ultimately died and the radiation amount was trivial, you'd still need to provide immediate medical care, even if just precautionary, for anywhere from a few hundred people to easily tens of thousands and still have to clean the fuck out of the area. Beyond that, you'd have to deal with the economic and political consequences (shutting down and evacuating Manhatten for just a few days could be catastrophic). If *literally* nothing else, there would be widespread panic immediately following confirmation. Every cough and headache would become radiation sickness and anything seemingly out of the ordinary would become the next bomb waiting to go off.

tl;drA dirty bomb is a weapon of fear more than anything else. You should not be afraid of a dirty bomb because it might kill you or lots of people, you *should* be afraid of what the world could be like after one is used. Just imagine all the fear, consequences, and effects resulting from 9/11, but amplified 10 times over. The media is retarded in general, but a dirty bomb is a problem, even their reasons are wrong.

>>41484992It's why you dedicate more than one interceptor to each missile, the first salvo of interceptors knocks the volume of warheads down to 28%, the next salvo reduces it to 8%, the third down to 3.3%

That's a lot of interceptors. In our 3,000 warhead scenario, you would need 9,000 interceptors minimum. If the enemy has effective decoys, you can either wait until the warheads fall below the altitude at which their decoys are stripped away by the thickening atmosphere (at which point you only have enough time for 1 salvo of interceptors), or you can just fire multiple interceptors at everything you see, decoy or not, which mean you might need something like 18,000 interceptors...or more.

Building and deploying that many interceptors, with the right amount at the right locations to intercept what the enemy throws at it is obviously not likely...and all of it can be defeated by just shooting more nukes at it, or just shooting some nukes at it to make you waste interceptors, or attacking the interception sites themselves...and on and on.

I mean there are actual reasons why these things have not been built. I think you should read further into this subject.

>>41485147Not him, but that's assuming an awful lot. In no particular order...

>that that success rate will be true even for the first salvo of interceptors>that the success rate can be compounded for the following salvos>that you can whittle the remainder down fast enough to matter>that the missiles be intercepted over the entire course of their flight, as opposed to particular stages like most ABM systems operate>that the systems and procedures in place can fully and properly handle such a massive difference in circumstances and succeed at the same 72% rate>that you're willing to spam your interceptors and risk not having enough to respond to second, third, etc strikes>that you have enough batteries in the right places to even target all the missiles>that the batteries can fire fast enough>that you'd have enough interceptors>that you wouldn't try to prioritize or exclusively focus on certain launches/missiles, deciding that protecting certain targets is more important than protecting others,

inb4:>well obviously you'd just fire the interceptors in quick enough succession to deal with [insert above assumption]Well then you're just wasting missiles on targets that have already been destroyed

>just make enough batteries and interceptors/place them everywhere neededThat's a whole lot of money, time, resources, and political capital for a marginal benefit that more likely than not will never be needed, and that could be used on more pressing and practical issues

>>41483024The sphere style is rarely used.They use the "ball and tube" nowadays.>>41483465The "demon core" was handled by hand, literally carried around in scientists pockets.Deaths from radiation from it only occurred when the two half-spheres came into contact with each other.>>41484189>>41484232Im guessing Trinity device would have been detonated already. I don't believe we had 3 cores worth of material when that test was performed.Its more likely fat man core, litre boy core and demon core.

>>41487477No. If it can't knock significant quantities of material from the ground into the air, then the only source of radioactive material would be the components of the warhead itself (< 300 lbs), comparatively little mass.

>>41487525If it is '45, it would probably be trinity/Fat man/demon, simply given how low the production rate was back then, and that by August they would be down to 1 core. It could be October or beyond, though.

>>41485146A dirty bomb isn't a weapon of fear. It is an actual weapon that kills with radiation. Why would I not be concerned about devices that can render land uninhabitable for hundreds of years or more?

>>41488368The detonation disperses the radioactive material, which decreases the intensity, which decreases the dosage received by anyone there. They also aren't going to be large enough to achieve effects comparable to say, the local fallout caused by a ground-burst. The intensity-half life relationship means that the radioisotopes that would be around long enough to contaminate an area for "hundreds of years or more" would not be radioactive enough to cause the dramatic damage that would make it intrinsically deadly, while the radioisotopes intense enough to have visible health effects would be too short-lived, scattered and (probably) little in number to do much. The main effect of a dirty bomb would be psychological.

>>41488368>hundreds of years or moreWorst case scenario is a Co-60 salted fission weapon, which would cause issues for a generation at most. Conventional dirty bombs run into a lack of radioactive material mass and the means to spread it to truly deny access to an area.

>>41488382>>41488383You both say this, but I can take a plane ticket right now to the Ukraine or Japan and literally go see irradiated areas that can not be inhabited. And that damage was unintentional. You then try and state what a worst case scenario is, but that's not possible. You can not know what materials might be used by anyone that would attempt such an action.

>>41488400Both of those cases involve literal tons of fission products concentrated in an extremely small area. Aside from the fact that a group interested in detonating a dirty bomb would be unlikely to be able to get a hold of radioactive waste material above medical disposal quantities, dispersing the material rapidly reduces its effectiveness as it decays down to less radioactive byproducts.

Do at least some nuclear missiles not come with a some sort of self destruct protocol that activates the nuke when the missile is compromised, such as when hit by an interceptor? It won't make sense for an ICBM but something used over shorter distances like a tactical nuke might be better off destroying an empty part of an opponent's land rather than doing nothing.

>>41482851the big secret nobody will tell you is that anti-missile tech is basically a crapshoot, if it's an ICBM fucking forget about it. especially with MIRVs. if someone sends a nuke your way, you're dying, no matter what Raytheon and Lockheed Martin tell you in their powerpoints

>>41489526Nobody knows for sure. Real war always throws such assumptions out of the window. Half of the things we think will work won't work. It's literally always like this especially after longer periods of peace.

Don’t we finally have lasers that can actually intercept warheads and missiles? Honestly, how long will it be until we reach a point where strategic level nuclear warfare is simply obsolete and wars with superpowers just becomes another thing that happens on the regular?

>>41489567It would have already happened, if it was going to ever happen. The fall the soviet union was the prime time for terrorist groups to get their hands on a nuke and nobody did.

>>41489744>Blow holes in the coolant pipes and hold off attempts to retake the site until that bitch melts down.That wouldn't really accomplish much other than wrecking the reactor and possibly making the site unusable for a little while.

>>41483086Plutonium is unstable, and will self collapse and reach critical mass all on its lonesome.Really scary stuff.It's carefully engineered to control how big a boom it makes and to prevent it from going boom without direction.

>At Fukushima they where able to begin working on it immediately. It didn't have a facility filled with angry goat fuckers in it.It took 26 hours for reactor 3 to start melting down after the coolant system shut down and one of the main reasons that the melt down happened at all is because the tsunami damage stopped replacement equipment from being brought in.

>>41490139>The Japanese government has recognized for the first time that a worker at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has died as a result of radiation exposure. The power plant suffered a severe meltdown during the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

http://time.com/5388178/japan-first-fukushima-radiation-death/

Just because no one died instantly doesn't mean the accident had no deaths.

Anti missile technology is a meme. None of it works, it's just faggots trying to outsmart Von Neumann and get around game theory. >>41482851It will most likely not detonate, nukes have several safeties that need to be tripped in order to go off. Even if it does, they aren't detonated at ground level, there's an optimal height on an airburst. Detonate too early and you'll not get any ground reflection, possible not hit ground at all, too late and your coverage shrinks. Too too high and you just have an EMP. Look at the Air 2 GENIE test and Starfish Prime.

>>41490217Causing 187 billion in damage, rendering 24 square miles permanently inhabitable, and forcing the host nation to increase it's spending on the defense of it's nuclear power plants indefinitely. Thats an excellent trade from an asymmetric point of view. And thats if it is "only" as bad as Fukushima.

>Causing 187 billion in damageNot even remotely true. It'll cost 15 billion over 20 years to clean up the plant; all other forecast expenditure is compensation claims over the evacuation and having to build a bunch of coal plants because they're too scared to build another nuclear plant.

>24 square miles permanently inhabitableAlso not even remotely true. Not to mention that the evacuation was deemed unnecessary as early as 2005, due to the low level of radiation actually released. Virtually all of the human and economic cost caused by Fukushima has been the fault of the Japanese government who decided to play security theater with a mass evacuation.

Either way, they're terrorists not mild-inconveniencers. Doing a minuscule amount of financial damage to their target nation isn't of interest to them, otherwise they would just attack pipelines and other infrastructure.

187 is the cost and there is an uninhabitable 24 mile exclusion zone. Terrorist frequently attack infrastructure including but not limited to oil pipelines, oil rigs, oil tankers, electrical substations, and airports.

>>41490402God you are just adorably ignorant.https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/oil-jumps-as-saudi-energy-minister-reports-drone-terrorism-against-pipeline.htmlhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-cabinet-oil-emirates/saudi-arabia-says-terrorist-attack-on-oil-tankers-raises-new-security-concerns-idUSKCN1SK2LT

>>41490453>187 is the cost >uninhabitable 24 mile exclusion zone.Do you really think that restating factually incorrect statements is going to somehow magically make your opinion valid? I mean seriously, even if you're getting all of your info from google, "Fukushima exclusion zone" would have given you the actual size of the zone. Full retard, my friend, full retard.

>>41490487>Anti-saud factions blowing up middle eastern pipelines is now relevant to islamic terrorism in western countries.Show me a single instance of islamic terrorists destroying infrastructure in a western country, slugger.

>>41490590You have no arguments or evidence and you use of logical fallacies proves it. Keep moving those goal posts and using ad hominem's. Saying nope your wrong and then providing no evidence is not an argument. I am truly sorry that you can not get through the cognizant dissonance of terrorism not being what you want it to be.

>>41490668>I am truly sorry that you can not get through the cognizant dissonance of terrorism not being what you want it to be.The conversation has always been about Islamic terrorists melting down a powerplant as a terrorist act. When I pointed out that melt downs don't actually kill people, you or him or whoever tried salvaging the idea by doing the following:>Claiming that one death 9 years later is relevant.>Claiming that the event caused 187 billion in damage, which is actually the total cost for compensation claims and moving away from coal power, a fact that is easily found with either wikipedia or google. >Claiming that the exclusion zone is currently 24 miles, despite it never at-any-point being larger than 12 miles and currently being reduced to some parts of two towns. >Claiming that attacks against Saud pipelines by anti-saud groups are evidence that islamic terrorists are interested in attacking Western infastructure.>Claiming that an attack against US infrastructure by an unknown party that the FBI believes were "insiders" is evidence of islamic terrorists attacking western infrastructure.

So if you're trying to claim that I'm moving goal posts or not providing evidence, than all I can really say is that you should try projecting less and learn quit when you know you're wrong. Also it's cogniTIVE dissonance, bud.

>>41484992>I feel like I could obliterate any country on Earth with 3,000 warheads...even 300 warheads is more than enoughYou’re assuming each warhead has a separate target, and that all warheads hit/destroy their targets. That’s not how it works. Any given target will have a number of warheads dedicated to it, depending on how badly the attacker needs to kill that specific target. Counterforce targets get priority, because you want to eliminate as much of the opposing arsenal as possible. This has the effect of preserving more of your arsenal, which leaves you in a better negotiating position after the first exchange. Anybody who launches their entire arsenal has lost the war, because they no longer have a credible nuclear deterrent.

Your 3K warhead scenario would involve something like 800-1000 targets. The vast majority of those targets are going to be counterforce. Boomer bases and SAC fields are going to get pasted, which sucks for the surrounding populace, but it’s nowhere near the same death count as if a comparable number of warheads were targeted on urban centers. Which, incidentally, would require ungodly amounts of warheads to kill a whole city.

Any country that would be a viable target for 3K warheads would be able to survive the hits. There’s not that many countries on the planet that are worth that kind of expenditure.

>>41483498Contained in a box that you set down and leave? Sure. As a fine powder that you inhale and settles in your lungs to continuously irradiate you for the rest of your (short) life? Fuck no, that shit is horrifying. Alpha and Beta particles can be stopped by sheets of paper and wood respectively, but once a source is inside the body you're looking at a whole fucking lot of energy with nowhere to go but meat.

>>41489985>have no problem with operations with no return ticket. And those DoE teams are trained under the same mentality. Their standard assumption is that any actual operation will sustain 70% casualties, and that's fine. They can and will pull shit like ramming their truck into a moving fissile material train to stop it.

>>41484029Could one, in theory, make a dirty bomb from the radioactive element in a X-ray machine? Was always kind of a worry of mine that terrorist organizations would do so by raiding abandoned hospitals in Iran/Iraq/etc.

>>41491544Dirty bombs are hollywood bullshit. Even if you made a massive bomb with heaps of radioactive material, you wouldn't be able to irradiate the blast area enough for the radiation risk to be meaningful.

>>41482851>Can nuclear missiles simply be shot mid-air?Yes, They trigger only when a very specific order of events happens, they cannot detonate without being triggered

>Wouldn't they still detonate and cause a lot of radiation?1st part, it requires a certain energy reaction that is made by equipment on the missile - an explosion will destroy that equipment and the explosion cannot release the same energy

2nd part - There is radioactive material onboard that would be scattered like a very Dirty bomb

>>41483024> It just requires the explosives to be detonated simultaneously across the surface of the sphere of plutonium, applying an equal force in all directions.Which an explosive detonating on one side of the missile would definately doEven then this is the simplistic lies to children explaination of the process

>>41491197This. It’s kinda cool and scary at the same time once you start learning about actual strategy in nuclear warfare once shit hits the fan. Most people just view MAD as the end all be all strategy when in reality, it is just a deterrent to avoid nuclear war. Once a war starts though. The likelihood of not only both nations involved surviving the exchange is good, but the possibility of one nation actually winning is also very possible. The idea of everything gets nuked and the Human race goes extinct is Hollywood bullshit. In a real exchange, you avoid population centers like the fucking plague to avoid having your own cities get mcnuked. Only strategic targets get fucked, and especially now with new technologies such as laser based C-RAM becoming an actual credible thing and not just pure sci fi. Is making nuclear war harder and harder to potentially conduct until we reach the moment where nuclear war may even become obsolete. Or at least on the strategic level, with all the near future ABM systems we can develop.

I was saying even if we take the idea that all it takes is a perfectly balanced explosion you cannot gett that with a missile exploding as the side where the missile exploded obviously would carry more force than the side where the missile was not

>>41491778>Unless the water supply is someone's bath you're going to need a shit load of material to be noticeable from background radiation, let alone be dangerous, a SHIT LOAD. Who mentioned Baths? irradiated particles in a drinking water source - Ingestion is the only real way for Alpha particles to cause more that basic problems and once inside the body it does serious damage

>>41491794I can only imagine that happening when skim readingIn what world would someone take the statement"Which an explosive detonating on one side of the missile would definately do"as serious unless you assume that the person has no understanding of what an explosion is

>>41491667I think a dirty bomb is more of a psychological weapon and an economic weapon. If you detonated one in an important metro center it would cause widespread panic, cost a massive amount of money to clean up, and cost a massive amount of money due to the disruption it would cause. The number of fatalities would be low, but it would be very disruptive considering how crude and simple the weapon is.

>>41492772>irradiated particles in a drinking water source Yeah and the ratio of water to caesium 137 (or whatever) would be so high in water's favor that it would be virtually impossible for a person to ingest any unless the source was the size of a bath tub.